The Golden Glove

Following the exploits of real-life German serial killer Fritz Honka, wretched denizen of Hamburg’s red light district in the ’70s, THE GOLDEN GLOVE is a seedy and shockingly gruesome historical drama that was an official selection at Fantastic Fest 2019.

When he’s not skinning or chopping up women in his squalid upstairs apartment, Fritz haunts his dive bar of choice, drinking liver-pickling amounts of vodka and revolting every woman he meets. German actor Jonas Dassler completely embodies the greasy, plastered, combover-sporting Fritz, who slinks menacingly around the streets until possessed by drunken compulsion to kill again.

Acclaimed filmmaker Fatih Akin (IN THE FADE) manages to create a drab yet visceral nightmare world of delicately composed gory detail, with brutal violence exacted in putrid environs. Easily the most grisly movie you’ll see this year (or maybe ever), THE GOLDEN GLOVE is a fucked up, stomach-churning fever dream so real you can almost smell it.

“Jonas Dassler is disturbingly compelling as Honka, more disturbing for his making a shuffling nobody so magnetic.” — Spleeny Dotson, Starburst